Tag: grain free

Happy Day after Halloween! Did you get a lot of candy? I was hoping we’d give away a lot more, but trick or treating was a little slow in our neighborhood due to drizzle…so guess who gets the leftovers??

Anyway.

This is what happens when you go through a fall recipe phase where everything you make is either orange or brown or some combination of the two.

You make something green!

Ok so technically this is another brown recipe with a little green added in, but it totally counts. Um, except let’s ignore the chocolate chips, shall we?

Suffice to say that my body has been craving nutrients in the form of green vegetables lately. Which may explain why Kevin and I went to Costco the other night and spent WAY too much money on bulk produce. (WAY too much. Like, I’m still reeling.) The upside is we’ve been juicing a lot lately, not to mention I’ve been packing lots of salads for lunch, so hopefully those nutrients I’ve been craving will kick in soon!

And although zucchini isn’t in season and I feel like I’m cheating on fall by sharing a spring-like recipe, this needed to happen. Seriously.

I guess you could make the argument that if I really needed the green vegetables I could have just made zucchini as a side dish to a real dinner instead of adding it to a sweet bread and throwing in chocolate chips…to which I’d say you’d be totally right.

But this probably definitely tastes better.

I mean, Kevin came home and ate three pieces in three seconds, so it has to be good, right?

Or it could have been that he was really hungry, which could also very well (and probably was) the case.

GRAIN FREE CHOCOLATE CHIP ZUCCHINI BREAD

yields: one loaf

prep time: ten minutes

cook time:60 minutes

INGREDIENTS

2 cups almond flour

2 eggs

2 cups grated zucchini

1/2 cup applesauce

1/2 cup coconut oil (melted)

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

INSTRUCTIONS

It’s a good idea to remove the excess water from your zucchini before you use it in this recipe. To do, place the shredded zucchini in the center of a clean dishtowel and wrap the ends around before wringing out the towel. This removes the extra moisture and will result in your bread not being super soggy. (It will still be more moist than regular bread, but not mushy.)

Preheat your oven to 350. In a bowl, combine all dry ingredients (except your chocolate chips. Then, add the wet ingredients and stir to combine. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour mixture into an ungreased bread pan and bake for about 60 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have ten pounds of leftover Halloween candy to eat.

But first off, let me again tell you how much I love this time of year. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous – perfect for slightly chilly mornings sharing coffee with The Husband on the balcony, balmy afternoons for strong runs and gym workouts, and crisp evenings for walking around our lake or sharing a glass of wine. Not to mention the smells of pumpkin, apples, and spice and the sounds of leaves crunching under your feet and crowds cheering on the local football team. And tomorrow it will officially be my favorite month out of the whole year!

Oh October, how I love you.

So this past Saturday Kevin (The Husband) and I slept in, enjoyed coffee on the balcony while spending some time reading the Bible for our upcoming discipleship group meeting, and then set out for a three mile run. (The same three mile run that kicks my butt when we run it – mainly due to the uphill mile two.) It occurred to us that if we ran the loop in the opposite direction, although we’d be starting and ending on a slight incline, the majority of the run would be on a decline and therefore would be easier.

Brilliant. We crushed it. I felt really strong the entire run, and Kevin let me keep the pace. We finished in about 29 minutes– which was a solid 9:45ish minute mile pace! Although I have to mention that the whole reason for running on Saturday was to finish three miles regardless of time. Therefore, we didn’t take our phones to map the run, we used Kevin’s watch to eyeball the time. I was expecting to be hurting a lot more – but as I said, I felt great and I couldn’t have been happier with our time! It was a great day and a great workout.

Which leads to an even greater brunch – the aforementioned pumpkin pancakes with apple raisin compote. These pancakes are grain, gluten, dairy and nut free – they consist entirely of unprocessed, whole ingredients – win! There isn’t even any added sugar – the natural sweetness of the apples and raisins, when heated, serves as a great topping for the pancakes – no syrup needed!

Plus, these are ridiculously easy to make. The pancakes consist of only a handful of ingredients – banana, egg, pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice and nutmeg. Seriously, that’s it. Now as you might expect, these pancakes don’t get as light and fluffy as pancakes made with flour – these will have a wet consistency and therefore don’t taste the same as regular pancakes but for us, they are a great substitute. The apple compote was even easier – heat some butter in a pan, add the sliced apples, raisins, and cinnamon and cook until the fruit forms and compote – about ten minutes overall. I tend to just stir the apples around in the pan, but if you want to get really fancy you can do this:

mid-flip!

Serve these up with a side of bacon and some fresh coffee and you have a perfect harvest brunch that’s to die for. Trust me.

Grain Free Pumpkin Pancakes with Apple Raisin Compote

yield: 10 small pancakes

prep time: 5 minutes

cook time: 10 minutes

INGREDIENTS

1/2 can pureed pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

1 banana

3 eggs

1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

dash of nutmeg (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

In a bowl, mix together all ingredients. Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium high heat and coat with olive or coconut oil. Pour the better onto the griddle in even circles (keeping them smaller to make flipping easier). Heat approximately 2 minute each side or until pancakes are brown and cooked through.

APPLE RAISIN COMPOTE

prep time: 5 minutes

cook time: 10-15 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

1 apple, cored and thinly sliced

1/2 cup raisins

cinnamon (to taste)

pumpkin pie spice (optional)

1 tbsp butter

INSTRUCTIONS:

Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add apples and cook approximately 3-5 minutes until they begin to soften. Add raisins and cinnamon and continue to cook additional 10 minutes until soft and heated through. Serve over pancakes.

First of all, let me say (albeit a few days after the fact), that I am so thankful there weren’t more fatalities as a result of the Asiana plane crash on Saturday. When I saw the story on the news, my heart sank – I was sure it was going to be very bad news. Praise God it wasn’t!

However, I was one of those passengers scheduled to fly through SFO airport on Saturday evening. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. After several re-bookings, cancellations, and re-re-bookings, I was finally put on a flight from LA to DC for Sunday. Fortunately for me, Papa Bear and Baby Bear hadn’t yet left the airport (we figured there was a pretty good chance I wasn’t flying out that night), so they came back to meet me and we headed back home.

Unfortunately my re-booked flight was a red eye, and I didn’t get back home until some ridiculous hour of the morning. So after I woke up on Monday (I had the foresight to call my office and let them know I wasn’t going to make it in) the first order of business was taking stock of my freezer and making a menu for the week. Well, actually the first order of business was coffee. Then I took stock of my freezer and made a menu. And you know what I found? A heck of a lot of frozen bananas. So you know what I did?

Most paleo breads and muffins I’ve found substitute way too many eggs for the flour, which is fine until I start spending a heck of a lot of money on eggs. I already buy two dozen a week at least, because I eat them for breakfast every morning, so I really don’t want to up that amount. So I browsed some recipes on the web and experimented a little bit and came up with these – they only have one egg, although they do have quite a bit of coconut oil. Still, I was pretty happy with the result!

They were still a bit wet when I first tasted one, but after they set for a while they are great – dense, almost chewy, and perfectly flavored. You could use walnuts in these instead of pecans, but pecans are my personal favorite. With just a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg they make the perfect breakfast accompaniment, or if you prefer they could also be dessert! And the best part is – I now have handy dandy snacks for breakfast, at work, or as an after dinner sweet! Score!

WHAT YOU NEED: (makes 12 muffins)

3 very ripe bananas (frozen work well), mashed

1 1/2 cups almond flour

1/2 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts)

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg

5 tbsp coconut oil

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 tbsp honey

WHAT TO DO:

Preheat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients (except nuts) together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients. Combine wet and dry ingredients and gently mix. Fold in nuts. Pour in to individual muffin cups and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.